First thing's first - I'm loving the bundles as they have been for the last three times - THQ, Deepsilver, and an Origin bundle? You're losing money if you don't buy them!

That being said, I feel like the Humble Bundle (run by Wolfire Games, the Lugaru/Overgrowth/Receiver dude[s]) is losing its focus, or at least the focus it had at its genesis. It started with some indie darlings (I'll not list them off - go look up the wiki page for it if you care), some bigger than others. Along with the weekly sale, there have been plenty games I haven't played or encountered before. However, now that they're the biggest bundle site in town, they have set their sights hell of a lot higher. THQ was going down the tubes and Deepsilver ain't that big of a name; I do wonder how they roped in EA to offer so many damn games for so little (snagged them for 10 bucks myself). I guess there's not much to complain really - people get games and charities get donations, but it does seem to defeat the purpose of having "Humble" in the title when you're offering the biggest AAA games from years past.

I am aware that there are plenty of smaller bundle sites out there, and they deal with hella obscure games that I haven't even heard a peep about, but as a 99%-er (or whatever you'd call it), I like to root for the small guys and seem them get theirs, which was definitely happening in the beginning - now, not so much.

Am I just a hipster douchebag who whines when too many people are enjoying the thing I was enjoying 'before it was cool', or does my criticism have merit?

I think it's pretty humble to charge so little for a product, AAA or not.

Exactly. Plus, if you want your really indie bundles for cheap, there's always Indie Royale or Indie Gala instead.

They still offer indie bundles rather often, or at least it seems like they do.

Think about it this way - people spread the word of really cheap AAA games like the ones on sale right now, and tons of people sign up for Humble Bundle. Tons of people also sign up for EA's Origin program and maybe buy some games on Origin later on. So EA and Humble Bundle both have a lot more customers. That massive increase in Humble Bundle's consumers are going to keep an eye on it.

And then the next Humble Bundle... what's this? A couple of indie games I've never heard of? What are they like? Ah, it's fairly cheap and I can put some money towards charity and find out for myself!

Some people accuse Humble Bundle of "selling out" or whatever, but by bringing bigger-budgeted games on board, they also bring more people on board to buying those smaller indie bundles. The little guy is not cut out of this - he greatly benefits from it.

Incidentally, it's also a chance for people who hate EA to try out EA's games without giving money to EA, legally.

Those are exactly my thoughts too. I've been tweeting about it and I seem to be in the minority, but this bundle just doesn't seem in the same spirit that humble launched with. In my eyes, Humble launched with two core values. Firstly it was about supporting and bringing attention to small indie developers. Secondly it was about providing games for all three main computer platforms - Windows, Mac and Linux. Both of those have been abandoned.

I understood the THQ stuff. It was about trying to support a failing publisher. And they made a huge deal of the lack of Mac and Linux, drawing people's attention to that fact with a big banner at the top, and promising that the core Humble Bundles would still continue to support the other platforms. That isn't the case with this latest bundle. There is no mention of the lack of Mac or Linux support on the page at all. The next big one I recall was Plants Vs. Zombies being in an Android Humble Bundle. Which I can almost understand since Popcap were formally indie. Although I spoke out against that too. But this EA bundle just seems in poor taste. EA are using a popular indie platform to increase their Origin install base.

I'm normally the last person to jump on the EA hate train. It's really dumb how the internet constantly hates on everything EA does. I'm more annoyed with Humble over this. I expect EA to do slightly nefarious things in order to increase profits. They're a massive multinational corporation. That's what massive corporations do. They're worried about the bottom line. But I expected better from Humble. They're the little guy. They're supposed to fight the corner of the little guy. Promoting small indie games. This bundle goes against the spirit that Humble was founded on.

EDIT: It's worth noting that the Humble Bundle's aren't run by Wolfire Games. The first one was, but then they spun it off into a separate company, Humble Bundle Inc.

All I know is I just got a bunch of games and all the money went to charity.

EA is taking no cut. thats pretty humble imho.

Completely agree with @ch3burashka and @mattyftm. Something that's also often overlooked is the prior focus on no-DRM sales. Check the pitch for the Humble eBook Bundle if you want to see what a big factor this was; several authors got on board purely for the purposes of showing their publishers that DRM-less sales were perfectly viable. Now they're pimping some of the biggest DRM cheerleaders around.

Steam codes for games have been included as a way of enhancing value - because Steam itself does add value for gamers - and a way of attracting Steam users in general, but the DRM-less versions used to be always included as part of the purchase, available from the HB page (I'm aware it hasn't been that way for a while). Origin doesn't add value in the way Steam does at all. It's just an EA tool and a storefront that they're trying to maximise at the expense of its rivals.

It's nice that you can send all the proceeds to charity, and the selection of charities is nice, but I'd rather just donate directly if that's going to be my main motivation.

Yupp, I think this makes it exactly in the spirit of the humble bundle despite being high profile games. All profits go to charity.

Seems like you've already got it figured out, duder.

I don't understand how anyone could possibly have a problem with this. EA isn't getting a cent. All the proceeds to go either charity or Humble Bundle itself.

This sounds like a hipster issue to me....I however love that they've been able to branch out like this, and this one in particular I like that they have everything go to charities (and not JUST the EFF and Child's Play).

Cheap ass games + Good funding for charity = problem? Indie games still get their due on Humble, and the AAA sales just ensure higher exposure for Humble Bundle, which is good for all involved.

Well that's why it's just the Humble Bundle instead of Humble Indie Bundle like it was at the start.

I don't see why championing games being indie, DRM-free or multi-platform means they have to only offer indie, DRM-free, multi-platform games. This is especially true since they're also doing their weekly sale along side it with four games that are indeed indie, DRM-free and multi-platform. They still do the full Humble Indie Bundle with same regularity as they ever have, after all. I don't see why they suddenly lose all their hipster indie-cred by doing an EA sale where EA don't take any of the profits.

Plus, I've never understood why indie games get special treatment just because they're indie. So they were made by a small team. So what?

I think you have a fair point in your argument, but perhaps the Humble Bundle is just expanding their scope. Think about it. Indie games are relatively cheap while AAA titles run you around sixty freaking dollars. I am a budget gamer so seeing something like this gives me a lot of hope and gives me a chance to catch up on AAA experiences. It could be an example to other publishers that they can sell these games at pay what you want level.

The spirit of the Humble Indie Bundle will never die, but I am not going to complain where they are going with this "buy AAA games for cheap."

The main "Humble Indie Bundles" are still cross platform, DRM free, and indie focused. The Humble Bundle itself, however, has a variety of different bundles. Personally, I love it.

Hipster issue, indeed.

This is too indie for me to handle right now

i cant say anything bad about humble bundle. they've given me the backlog of my dreams. ask yourself if it really bothers you or are you simply trying to hard too find fault with everything?